


Bycatch

by Mokulule



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Cylo and his abominations, Don't copy to another site, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mokulule/pseuds/Mokulule
Summary: It is a period of unrest for the Empire, the Rebellion has destroyed the Death Star. Vader's failure has put him in bad standing with the Emperor. There are people working to replace him and now there's rumors of Anakin Skywalker alive in the Outer Rim.Luke Skywalker has heard the same rumors and he cannot ignore them...
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 119
Kudos: 465
Collections: 2019 Star Wars Secret Santa





	1. A Meeting With Destiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HeartOfStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartOfStars/gifts).



> Dear HeartOfStars
> 
> I hope you enjoy your Secret Santa fic, it has been great fun to write <3  
> The next chapters will be up with a few days in between them :)
> 
> Thanks to KaelinaLovesLomaris for giving it a read through <3  
> 
> 
> Bycatch:  
> In the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while catching certain target species and target sizes of fish, crabs etc. Bycatch is either of a different species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juvenile individuals of the target species.

**Chapter 1 - A Meeting With Destiny**

“I wish you wouldn’t go, it’s too big a risk,” Leia says from the doorway as she watches Luke pack. Her arms are crossed and the frown on her face is edged deep in worry.

Luke looks up with a pained expression. He wants to stay, to support Leia, who takes way too much on her shoulders and has lost even more than him, but-

“I have to go. If there’s even the slightest chance it could be him…” He looks at her with those big blue honest eyes, imploring her to understand. To know that he doesn’t want to abandon her - the cause. 

Leia feels a pang in her chest. He doesn’t have to look at her like that.

“I know. I would do the same thing.” If there was even a single chance her mother or father or a single piece of Alderaan alive… She sighs, she understands. 

“I still wish you’d stay.” 

Somehow the thought of losing Luke is unbearable. They’ve only known each other for a few months, but it is like he is a piece of her walking around outside of her, when she just wants to hold all parts of herself close, so she doesn’t lose anymore. She hates the lack of control. How dare he take a piece of her heart and leave with it.

Almost as if reading her mind, he goes to her and wraps her into a firm embrace. Like he can keep her together just by holding her.

“I’m coming back,” he promises vehemently.

“It could be a trap, the Empire…” she trails off as she looks up and sees Luke’s smile.

“The Empire don’t know who I am.”

“As far as we know,” Leia cautions in return.

“We know they have a bounty the weight of a bantha on the pilot who destroyed the Death Star-“ He takes a step back and holds out his arms, and there’s that bashful farm boy smile on his face. “-but who would expect that to be me?”

He is right of course. Nobody expects Luke, naive teenage farm boy from Tatooine with a sunny disposition, to be the skilled pilot who made that shot. She knows Han has had much fun, being mistaken for the Death Star pilot with the new recruits. They all expect someone older and taller. Luke looks so deceptively harmless.

She goes to embrace him again and he returns the hug. It is so easy with Luke. She’s about to tell him to take care, when Han barges in.

He halts in the doorway. His eyes flick between them and there’s the barest flash of a frown Leia can’t interpret, before he grins lasciviously and wiggles his eyebrows. Even before he’s spoken a single word, she feels her temper rising. He opens his mouth and she points a threatening finger at him.

“Not a word,” she hisses and watches his pupils dilate and his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows whatever words he’d been about to say. There was this obnoxious, distracting tension between them and Leia hated it with a passion. A weird feeling turned her stomach. She pushed it all to the back of her mind and left with a glare at the smuggler.

Han looks to Luke hoping to commiserate only to be met with an exasperated stare.

“Why must you antagonize her?” Luke sighs and picks up his light travel-pack. 

Han touches his chest and sends him an exaggerated betrayed look, “I didn’t say a word.”

Luke rolls his eyes.

“Well, your eyebrows did.” 

He steps past Han and starts down the hallway in the opposite direction of the princess. Han follows Luke since he was about to go to the hangars anyways, it’s not like he wanted to change Luke’s mind on this silly quest of his. The princess had already tried.

Han finds himself following Luke anyway. The kid is leaving on an old transport ship, hair’s breadth from the junkyard, intent on being less suspicious than if he was flying an X-wing across the galaxy. Luke’s astromech rolls up to him, Han knows very little binary but he knows the droid is cursing the kid ten ways to Empire Day for leaving or maybe leaving without the droid, it’s hard to say with such rapid fire whistles. 

“I will be back Artoo,” Luke responds setting a hand on the domed head of his droid. Then he turns, and regards Han expectantly.

He expects him to try to stop him, and Han would have, he is hardly one to hold his tongue rather than say his opinion, except this is about the kid’s father. Luke who’d convinced Han to storm the Death Star for a stranger in a hologram. With this being about his father, Han has no leg to stand on. So instead of holding him back he merely says;

“Take care, kid.”

Luke nods gratefully. “Give Chewie a hug from me, when he returns.”

“Will do.”

Oo o oO

Luke is disappointed. He nurses his single drink, alcoholic not to stand out, as he takes in the old man who claims to be Anakin Skywalker through the smoke in the cantina. He has dirty, unkempt, dark grey clumpy hair that may still have brown in it, if it had seen a wash in the last decade - or well, since the original color is indistinguishable it could technically have once been blond like Luke’s. His eyes are dark and bloodshot, his cheeks red with alcohol.

It was just… in no way did this man fit with any of what he’d been told of his father. Not the great warrior, pilot or Jedi, not even the navigator of a spice freighter - well except if the navigator had dipped into the cargo - but even so, the man looks nothing like Luke! Does Luke even want a man who has abandoned himself like this to be his father? 

On one hand, the thought of his father being alive fills him with a longing he can barely contain. On the other hand, if his father has been alive all these years, why had Luke been left to be raised by his aunt and uncle? Why did he never come for Luke? Why hadn’t he ever visited? Or sent a single holo?

Emptying his drink, he grimaces at the sour taste and stands up. There is only one way to find out. Luke ignores the glares and threats from the other patrons as he makes his way to the corner table, to stand in front of the wreck of a man. 

It takes a while before the man notices him, and up close even the general reek of alcohol and unwashed bodies in the room isn’t enough to mask the stench of garbage coming off the man.

He sets his _brown_ eyes on Luke.

“Scram kid.”

The blunt dismissal hurts somewhere it shouldn’t be able to, because there’s no way this man can actually be his father.

“Are you really Anakin Skywalker?” Luke asks anyway.

“Sure kid, y’her t’ hear war st’ries? Well I ain’t got time fer ya, now scram.”

Luke’s shoulders relax. He isn’t telling the truth. He claims to be Anakin Skywalker, but he isn’t telling the truth. It repeats like a mantra of clarity in his head. Luke is certain of it. Why he claims to be Anakin Skywalker is not nearly as important as the fact that he isn’t. Relief battles with disappointment in his chest, because he’d gotten his hopes up when he heard the rumors. Luke is so lost in his emotions that he doesn’t hear the bar go dead silent.

The silence is broken by a long hiss. 

It repeats.

Luke feels like a cold hand clenches his heart. He spins and looks up. Fright clogs up his throat. His head moves in a small aborted shake of denial at what he sees: Vader.

The masked head inclines to look down at him. He can’t move, can’t breath, can’t look away. Out the corner of his eye he sees the other patrons of the bar leave as silently as they can. Luke swallows dryly. Stressed little drops of sweat break out on his forehead. There’s less than a foot between them and Luke can feel his imminent death like cold fingers around his throat.

“Yo’ act’ly came,” the drunk, gruff voice of the old man says.

Vader’s gaze moves to the imposter and Luke takes in a large gulping breath. He still can’t get his shaking, weak knees to move, no matter how much his mind screams to run. 

Oo o oO

Darth Vader does not allow any mention of Anakin Skywalker. He has erased all mention of that failure for a reason, so when news of someone claiming to be Anakin Skywalker had reached him, he had personally come to teach the man the folly of his actions.

He found the man in question easily enough. For someone claiming to be a dead Jedi from a past age, they were very bad at hiding. But the moment he arrived his attention had been drawn not to the imposter, but the boy standing in front of him. He is strong in the Force and there is something familiar about it…

The boy having finally noticed him, spins around and pales as fear spikes in his Force signature.

Vader inclines his head to properly look at him, and at once he recognizes the face. It was the boy from the Death Star, the one Kenobi had brought, the rebel who’d escaped Vader above the Death Star, the one who made the shot. 

The boy must be desperate for a teacher after Kenobi’s death if he’s chasing folly rumors of Anakin Skywalker. A grim smile stretches scarred skin painfully, oh the irony. The boy is right to be afraid. His death will not be a quick one. He shall suffer for the humiliation he’s put Vader through- Vader’s musings are interrupted by the drunken drawl of the imposter:

“Yo’ act’ly came.” 

He doesn’t respond to the drunkard except to look at him. The man is secondary now, his death will be a quick one. Vader has found a far greater prize.

"D'yo kno' who I am? Yo' don’t?" The man laughs humorlessly, “you killed my son.” The man stops laughing. He seems almost sober in his anger. Pathetic.

“You will have to be more specific,” Vader mocks, “I’ve killed plenty of sons.”

“And fathers,” the boy mumbles lowly, the touch of anger all but erasing the fear from his Force presence; interesting. The boy is about to do something, he can feel the anticipation in the Force, likely a foolish attack, but the drunken old man draws both their attentions again.

“And now you die!” he screams, ripping open his dirty shirt to reveal the bomb strapped to his chest.

On impulse Vader grabs the rebel and draws him close before throwing out his left hand, summoning the Force. The explosion rocks against his shield and Vader throws all his anger, hatred and disgust at it. Compared to the maelstrom of power that is the Dark Side, this explosion is merely a drop of water. 

_Fear-awe-alarm!_ The feelings slam into him from the rebel, disrupting his concentration for just a fraction of a second, but it is enough. He registers a damage warning from his left leg as a flicker to the side of his display. Even more explosions go off and the floor crumbles beneath them. 

They fall.


	2. A Deal With The Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Anakin Skywalker imposter turned out to be a mad, grief-stricken old man who intended to take Vader down with a suicide bomb, no matter the consequences...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again thanks to KaelinaLovesLomaris for giving it a read through <3

**Chapter 2 - A Deal With The Devil**

Vader wakes up disoriented and in more pain than usual. Events slowly trickle into his brain along with a familiar humming sound. The imposter who was out for revenge, dark satisfaction fills him at having foiled that particular plan, the imposter had blown himself to bits for nothing. The rebel, who was not only Force sensitive, but strong and who had apparently received no training whatsoever from Obi-Wan. He broadcasts his feelings with the strength of a foghorn - _determination_. He… He is also standing over Vader with a blue lightsaber pointed right at his chest. Vader suspects had he had any sensitivity left he would have felt the heat, so close is the tip of the plasma blade.

The rebel is conflicted. Vader can feel the assault of his feelings on his shields. He cannot properly see the youth’s features in the dim light of the lightsaber to gauge exactly what’s going on. He opens his shields a bit.

_Anger-hatred-kill-confusion._ A single thought stands out clearly amongst the clutter of disorganized emotions, an absolutely bewildered: _He saved my life!_ The boy could just as well be speaking to him, the words are that clear.

Numbly Vader retreats behind his shields, realizes belatedly he may not be able to stop the boy from landing a fatal blow. Part of him wants him to strike. 

The respirator’s steady cycles are loud next to the hum of the lightsaber.

Kh-hiss

Kh-hiss

Kh-hiss

“You will not get a better chance than this, boy,” he says, unobtrusively creeping his right hand towards his own lightsaber. Two more breath cycles pass and he nearly has the hilt in hand. 

The rebel makes a noise of frustration and turns the lightsaber off, plunging them into darkness. His steps sound angrily on the stone floor as he walks a couple of steps away. Something of an idealist then, Vader muses, either that or some kind of honor code. Foolish either way, he should have killed him when he had the chance.

With the light from the lightsaber gone his helmet switches to infrared.

“Why did you save me?” The boy throws the words at him like an accusation, it echoes off the walls.

“You could potentially contain valuable information.” It is a simple enough answer, it makes sense and yet it doesn’t quite ring true. It had been an action born entirely of instinct. There had been no time for logic, he had just reacted. The rebel mutters something in the background, but Vader doesn’t hear as he searches his own feelings.

Why indeed?

He feels like something is missing, a vital piece of information that will explain his uncharacteristic action. He focuses on the boy. The intensity of his feelings has receded and he’s no longer broadcasting them for every Force user in a ten mile radius. Now he’s just a blazing warm presence, burning with the strength of a sun. His surface emotions are colored by wariness and pain (from the fall probably), underneath that compassion (for him, he is startled to note), determination to find a way out and further down a sense of longing and disappointment.

Abruptly a wall slams down and Vader is back in his own head, his own body of constant pain and low level anger. The rebel takes a few steps back shaking his head eyeing him with a disturbed clarity.

“Get out of my head,” he grits through clenched teeth.

“Then stop broadcasting your thoughts,” he returns, darkly amused with the angry splutter covering up mortification he gets in return. Vader tries to stand, but his left leg makes a whirr of protest and refuses to bend.

“What was that?” The rebel asks distracted from his embarrassment.

“None of your concern.” Vader’s tone is the type that closes conversations and leaves people fearing for their lives.

Of course the rebel is suicidal. He turns the lightsaber back on and holds it aloft to see by. His gaze falls on Vader’s left leg, where a ragged piece of shrapnel protrudes from the knee joint.

“You’re injured. Let me have a look.”

Before Vader can protest, the boy is kneeling by his left leg turning the lightsaber this way and that to better observe the damage.

“We’re gonna have to pull it out. It blocks the joint itself, trying to force movement is likely to burn out the servos.”

From what Vader has seen, he agrees with the assessment. 

“Stand back.”

Startled the boy takes a step back. Vader makes a fist with his left hand and with a flick of his arm, the Force yanks the shard free. 

Wide eyed and impressed the boy comes closer again to inspect the knee. He grimaces, and prods the torn mechanics with his fingers. 

“I believe you can move the leg now, but I don’t think it can take much weight. The alignment is off and the stabilizer cords have been damaged.”

“You know your mechanics,” Vader says faintly impressed, feeling a strange almost kinship with the rebel: an excellent pilot, mechanical knowledge and a very strong connection to the Force. If he can be persuaded to the side of the Empire he could be a great asset, and if he cannot, it is no great loss.

Vader gets to his feet keeping the majority of his weight on his right leg and the boy stumbles away from him, his presence tinged with fear, which only heightens as he draws his lightsaber. Its red glow creates the slightest bit more light. Vader turns around, raises his lightsaber and looks up. They are quite thoroughly caved in. He doesn’t have the patience to move the rocks. He also doesn’t know for sure how far into the ground they are. Spinning around he smiles darkly at the way the rebel jumps back in fear despite the red lightsaber being nowhere near him.

He looks around, this is not a naturally formed cave, it has definitely been created with purpose. The walls are too straight, the arcs too perfect. There are symbols edged into the walls. At the far end of the room is a tunnel. No way but forward.

Vader starts walking, limping actually as his left leg will carry him less than a second at a time, but that will not stop him. He reaches the mouth of the tunnel only to realize the rebel is not following.

“Do you intend to stay here, boy?”

The boy runs to catch up.

Luke doesn’t know what to think of Vader. He’s been significantly less murdery since the explosion. He cannot help but wonder if he hit his head on the way down. Luke was quite certain Vader would murder him where he stood back in the bar, but now he’s getting none of the murdery vibes. Vader is still huge and menacing, but he doesn’t freeze Luke to the spot with mind numbing fear. Luke is wary of him, this is still Darth Vader, he isn’t stupid, but it seems Vader has at least temporarily shelved the idea of killing him. And isn’t that strange? Vader surely knows he’s a rebel, he had seen Luke on the Death Star, he’s sure of it. At least he has no way of knowing Luke is the Death Star pilot. But still he’s a rebel, so usually he would be dead by now. Or maybe that’s just the way Vader is. Now that his focus is to get out of here, Luke’s demise has been postponed. 

The red and blue lights flicker off the smooth rock walls of the winding tunnels. They find several dead ends and have to turn back. But Vader just continues with that single-minded focus despite his limp, he’s unstoppable, and fearsome and here is Luke walking calmly by the side of his father’s killer, this person who has slaughtered countless people in cold blood. He can’t quite believe himself.

A part of him wishes he’d killed him when he had the chance. Leia would have done it. She would be so frustrated that he had such a chance and didn’t take it. But he also knows he would have forever felt shame, killing a man defenseless and unconscious. A man who, no matter his motive, had just saved his life. 

No, Luke could not kill him - not like that. And now the chance has passed and he’s stuck here in these tunnels with nothing better to do but follow Vader. Vader who keeps calling him boy, like he is some child.

A drop of sweat rolls down Luke’s brow and he wipes it away with a frown. It is getting warmer. He takes off his dusty yellow jacket and ties it around his waist, it is harder with a lightsaber in one hand, but it’s doable, and he sighs in relief. The short sleeved black shirt allows some much needed ventilation. There’s something else though… 

“What’s this smell?” Luke breaks the silence with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose. Vader merely looks at him. Luke realizes he can’t smell anything from inside the suit. 

“It’s like… like something burning and like-“ Luke pauses and his brows crinkle in confusion because surely this cannot be, “like rotten dewback eggs?”

Vader stops and looks straight ahead. Luke feels a sudden chill, like a premonition.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” he breathes.

“Come,” Vader orders.

The tunnel twists and turns a few more times before suddenly evening out, there’s a warm glow coming from the mouth of the tunnel.

“Turn off your saber.”

Luke looks from Vader to the red lightsaber, with raised eyebrows.

“You first.”

There’s some indefinable sound coming from the mask like a low scratchy sound. Then Vader turns off his lightsaber and hangs it at his belt, before continuing his steady limp, onwards, but he seems somehow quieter now - more wary. 

Luke realizes Vader doesn’t want the lightsaber glows to give them away to anyone potentially looking down the tunnel. He turns off his own lightsaber with a roll of his eyes, he could have just said so. Then he follows silently behind. 

The tunnel absolutely reeks of rotten eggs at this point and Luke can’t help but cough. Vader glances sharply at him, before focusing back on the road. 

There are weapons hanging on the walls now; swords, spears, axes, knives, shields in various shapes and weapons he doesn’t know the names of with chains and spiky balls. The weapons look old. There are obvious chips in the metal from use, they are not decorations. Luke feels his heart beat faster. He looks back at the mouth of the tunnel. The light moves, as if from a fire. He’s half blind from so long in mainly darkness as they step out of the tunnel, Luke in the shade of Vader’s massive body. He looks down from the small bridge he finds himself on to see a river of _lava_ fifteen feet below them _._

Luke’s eyes widen, a gasp catches in his throat and turns into a cough. Whatever fumes coming off that lava can’t be healthy. He blinks and squints, steps to the side of Vader to look around.

The room is large and cavernous, the center is a round platform held suspended over the molten river by four heavy chains. Above the lava in the rock wall there’s large holes throughout the circumference of the room, likely some sort of ventilation or there’s no way that they wouldn’t be burnt by the sheer heat. Luke looks up and around and there’s empty balconies on the walls all around. 

It’s an arena. 

While the rebel is taking in the sights Vader only has eyes for one thing. Hatred flares in his gut as he glares at the abomination standing on a balcony to the left.

“Cylo.”

Luke spins to look where Vader is looking and sees a man with short gray hair and a strange green skin condition on the right side of his face. Where his right eye is supposed to be there’s instead something black and glistening?

“Lord Vader, I expected you sooner, we were starting to think the explosion had taken you out.”

“We,” Luke mouthes, only for movement across the room from them to draw his attention. Straight ahead there is another tunnel with another bridge leading to the platform. A man and a woman both with orange-blonde hair stride confidently across the bridge onto the platform. They look to be in their late twenties.

“Took you long enough, old man,” the guy says directed to Vader with all the confidence of youth. Luke is quietly horrified at the absolute lack of manners.

“I look forward to taking your place at the Emperor’s side.”

“You overstep, Morit,” the woman says, and for a moment Luke thinks she’s chastising him for his manners, but then she continues, “It will be me who stands victorious.”

The sheer arrogance… 

Vader considers the twin upstarts and then Cylo. 

Cylo is a mad man with no scruples on the kind of abominations he will create, machine and flesh of different species all combined at his whims. The twins, Morit and Aiolin Astarte, are such abominations despite their deceptively normal appearance. Cylo wants his work acknowledged by the Emperor and the Emperor is humoring them. He thinks to replace Vader with these Force blind technological terrors, but he will soon know that there is no greater power than the Force. 

The Emperor had ordered them not to kill each other, but considering Cylo had orchestrated the whole thing, Vader felt confident there was no way word would come out of this battle. He smiled. He would teach the whelps to respect the Force.

Igniting his lightsaber he strides forward. There’s a snicker from the twins at his limp, it will merely speed up their demise if they underestimate him. Off-handedly he glances at the rebel, it is almost a shame to let him go with that potential.

“This is your best chance to escape, boy.”

And it is, the twins had circled the platform. Knowing there is no way Vader will run, there has been no reason to guard the path they’d come from and now the road ahead is clear for Luke. 

“What?” Luke looks back at Vader outraged, “You’re going to fight them? Like this?” He flings a hand in the direction of Vader’s weak leg. Luke may only have gotten a single lesson in handling the lightsaber, but Ben had drilled into him the importance of legwork. If the legs can’t follow it doesn’t matter what fancy things you can do with your arms. And also Vader thinks he will run? It rankles somehow. They may be enemies, but they are in this mess together.

A chuckle echoes around the room from up high and Luke looks up to meet the eyes of the Cylo character, who seems to be looking at Luke for the first time.

“Yes boy, run and hide. It’s your only chance.”

Luke grits his teeth. 

Vader feels a warning through the Force: the foolish rebel is about to do something incredibly stupid. But what does it matter to Vader if the rebel doesn’t escape? He’s strong in the Force but with no guidance he is no match for the twins’ enhancements, but Vader supposes he can be a decent distraction.

Radiating determination the boy steps forward to Vader’s side on the platform.

He draws his lightsaber, the blue light makes Cylo blink in surprise.

“My name is Luke Skywalker,” the boy announces loud and clear and Vader’s heart stops. 

He hears the next words as if from a distance: “I am the son of a Jedi Knight-“ 

_Anakin Skywalker…_

_Anakin Skywalker’s son…_

His _son!_

“-and I will not _run_.”

“What?!” Vader yells. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's heating up! Next chapter is my favorite chapter of this, so get ready :D


	3. A Dance With The Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the worst possible time Vader found out the rebel is actually his son. Now Vader somehow has to get the both of them out alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to KaelinaLovesLomaris for reading it over for weird grammar <3  
> And thank you all for the lovely comments <3

**Chapter 3 - A Dance With The Wind**

“My name is Luke Skywalker, I am the son of a Jedi Knight and I will not _run._ ”

Cylo laughs hysterically looking from Luke to Vader, not because of the boy’s foolhardiness as the twins obviously thinks, and they’re laughing too. No, Cylo’s laughing because as the man responsible for creating Vader’s suit, he _knows_. He knows Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, and he laughs at the irony, because Vader had made it clear he hadn’t known. 

All this time, the piece Vader was missing to understand why the boy drew him… And it is so obvious in hindsight. The boy is so much like he himself was in his youth. 

Vader feels a sudden urgency he hasn’t felt in a long time. If his hands had been flesh they would have shook. The leather creaks as he tightens his hold on the saber. 

Cylo must not be allowed to leave. 

Vader steps in front of the boy, and he can feel his surprise. He speaks as lowly as the vocoder will allow:

“Young one, you are untrained, but the Force is a powerful ally. You must not think, only act as the Force guides you.”

Luke looks up at him, he’s confused, but he tightens his jaw and sensibly takes the advice with a deep calming breath. The Jedi way, weak as it is, is very well suited for defense and that’s what the boy needs to survive. The boy _must_ survive.

“Good,” he praises, “now reach out with your feelings.” The words are strange in his mouth, like from a time forgotten, but they return so easily.

Vader feels it, feels that Force presence swell like a bonfire, and how could he have missed it? It is so undeniable. He should have moved the damn rocks. He would have moved a mountain to make sure Luke was safe. Had he only _known_. But it is too late. 

Vader advances on the twins, anger like a cloak, but worry is a poison in his gut. The blaze of his son at his back is an assurance - and a distraction.

A glance to the balconies shows that Cylo is gone, of course.

Morit’s saber sweeps into his vision, and he swings his saber downwards to meet it. The impertinent child grins at him.

“Did you forget this was a fight?” The sabers crackle from the contact. Vader bears down, but Morit’s enhancements allows him to hold firm, though the strain is visible. “Getting a bit senile, in your old age?”

Vader grits his teeth. He’s more arrogant than Cylo himself. 

Aiolin strikes from the back, and Vader is the one forced to disengage. 

He’s moving slower with his leg. The twins twirl around him, like choreographed dancers striking like snakes. Only the Force allows him to deflect their blows. He’s rapidly losing patience, but as long as they are focused on him, they don’t focus on Luke… Luke, who’s completely distracted by the lightsabers, his own saber hanging limp by his side as he watches from the sideline.

“Focus, boy!” Vader barks and deflects another strike.

“Are they Jedi?” The boy demands, accusation in his tone, and the last thing Vader needs right now is Luke joining the Astarte brats.

“No, fool.” Vader ducks and spins on his good foot. Aiolin cuts off a piece of his cape. “A lightsaber doesn’t make a Jedi.”

Luke’s hand clench around his lightsaber and Vader’s eyes are drawn to the hilt, Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, Vader realizes like a punch to the gut. The Force screams a warning and he quickly throws up a high block. Aiolin hits the block from up high, she’d used the thrusters in her boots to gain height and the downward momentum is nearly enough to power through Vader’s block. A fraction of a second later Morit is sweeping in at his unprotected stomach.

He steps away, on his left leg, and it gives away under him. He stumbles, barely keeps standing. Red hot pain scores into his side, it’s superficial but distracting. He growls angrily, grabs the Force and pushes. Both twins go flying over the edge, but the edge of the blast hits Luke and the Force of the blast knocks him backwards towards the edge. The wind whips at his loose black shirt and the yellow jacket around his waist.

Luke lands too close to the edge and then the momentum makes him _roll_. 

Once… 

_Twice…_

Vader’s respirator forces air into his lungs he otherwise wouldn’t have drawn.

Luke stares wide eyed at the lava down below. His breath catches in his throat. It feels so much closer now. His head and the right side of his upper body hang over the lava. The heat dries out his eyes and he blinks rapidly and swallows. That was much too close. Frantically he grabs the edge of the platform and gets back on his feet. This time he moves further away from the edge.

“Let’s not do that again,” Luke says breathlessly.

Vader silently agrees. He cannot risk it.

The twins of course haven’t got the sense to actually fall into the lava, they simply use their thrusters to get back on the platform. The little gnats are too fast for Vader to simply grab with the Force, and even if he should get ahold of one, the other would simply attack him. It is not currently an option.

There’s a moment as the adversaries consider each other, he sees the way Aiolin considers Luke. It is only a matter of time, before he will be involved. 

“Don’t look at them with your eyes,” Vader orders, “sense them, sense us.”

Luke does as ordered. He closes his eyes, a terrible habit Vader will have to rectify sooner rather than later. It’s only moments later his eyes fly open, “they don’t-“

Aiolin attacks him and he barely leaps out of the way. Vader doesn’t know what he’d have said, different people see the Force in people differently, like those who see plant vines growing throughout the person or lights and shadows, for him it was always fire - it always ended in fire with him. 

He has no way of coming to Luke’s aid, Morit attacks Vader angrily for his distraction.

Luke pants and barely jumps away from another strike. The woman is incredibly fast, and the smile on her face is infuriating. In fact he’s pretty sure she’s just toying with him, because the way she moved before when she was tag teaming Vader with her brother, makes this look like a stroll. 

He breathes out slowly, keeps his temper in check and keeps his guard up. Another moment she plays is another he’s alive. Seeing Vader stumble had been a reality check for Luke, it had been stupid of him to stay. The siblings are not Jedi, but they are not regular humans either, and Luke is way out of his league.

She stops suddenly and just stands there smiling. Luke keeps backing slowly away from her, ever mindful of the edge coming closer. His face is glistening with sweat and his shirt sticks to his skin from the heat, but somehow she looks just as put together as she did at the start of the fight.

“So, Skywalker’s brat huh? You came here looking for your daddy?”

The jab hurts but he tries not to show it. He’s not successful.

“Amazing, you _did_ , and here we thought we’d only lure in Lord Vader with that obvious lie.” She pauses, glances at her brother fighting Vader, “You know Lord Vader there is the one who killed all the Jedi, right?”

“I’m aware,” Luke grits.

“And yet, you’re fighting on his side.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll let me live, anyway.”

“Oh I’m sure Cylo would just love someone actually Force sensitive to experiment on, but that would mean a future rival for me and that just won’t do.” She grins and points a palm at Luke.

Luke frowns and squints, there’s something on her palm, something metallic. A blast of flames jump out at him. Wide eyed Luke drops to the ground. He pats at his hair smothering the smoldering tips, then rolls to the side as another rope of flame comes at him. He stumbles to his feet and yelps. The flames burn a hole through his shirt on his upper right arm leaving the skin blistering. He spins around facing her. She’s herding him towards the edge and there’s nothing he can do. Every time he tries to run inwards, there’s the fire. 

He takes another step back, and he nearly falls right over the edge. The air is like a wall of heat against his back. Desperately he waves his arms to gain back his balance.

Vader feels his heart in his throat as he reaches out, desperation making the Force feel like water slipping through his fingers. A moment later Luke is back on the edge, both feet flat on the ground. 

“Use the Force, boy!” Vader shouts angrily.

Luke closes his eyes, still a terrible habit, but Vader can feel the Force roaring with his son’s connection and he knows Luke will deflect Aiolin’s incoming attack. 

She’s hoping to topple him over the edge, but Luke doesn’t put any strength behind his block and merely gives way, dancing to the side along the edge. Aiolin herself nearly goes over the edge and with a growl she turns on Luke, because it was just a fluke, it had to be. His eyes are still closed.

Luke’s very presence is burning Vader as the light guides his steps, but he can’t look away. One misstep and he will fall off the platform but he doesn’t. Fluid like the wind he bends, and twirls, dancing out of reach more than he deflects, skirting the very edge. Aiolin is getting angry, her attacks coming more and more erratic.

It is to Vader’s fortune Morit has also stopped to watch.

“Karking hells, stop playing Aiolin, and just kill him!”

“If it’s so easy,” she grits, sweat running like rivers down her face, “then you do it.”

Luke has never felt anything like this. He is a grain of sand whirling through the air. The air might push him around, but he cannot be harmed. So he goes with the wind, picks up speed. He can feel the strength building like a sandstorm in the distance, coming closer, picking him up. He is unstoppable. Around he goes again and this time he strikes back.

He hits something hard that doesn’t give. But he is sand and it is sand that has smoothed rock faces of mountains, mountains that will eventually be worn down until only sand remains. So he hits again and again. He advances, one step, two steps.

Fear cuts through his concentration and he blinks his eyes open. Aiolin’s blue eyes are wide with fear as she looks at him. His saber is at her throat. The hilt of her lightsaber lies cut in two on the ground. Her hands are trembling where she holds them out in surrender.

Luke shakes his head, takes a step back. His ears are ringing. Reality hasn’t quite caught up to him. 

“Luke!”

He looks up. Vader is reaching towards him. He turns his head slightly upwards and there’s Morit coming down towards him from above, lightsaber raised above his head to deliver a powerful overhead strike. He moves to block, but pain erupts in his wrist and his lightsaber goes flying. Aiolin kicked him. 

It feels like hours, like the world stands still. Death rushing towards him leisurely, ready to cleave him right down the middle. His heart reaches for Leia and for one heartwrenching moment it’s like she is there with him and he can smell her perfume, Alderaanian Lilies, she uses it so sparingly, but it was there when he said goodbye. 

But that’s not right, all it smells of here is fire and death and rotten eggs.

Luke’s breath is knocked from his lungs by a hard hit to his chest and time rushes back in with a vengeance. Luke hits the ground hard. A lightsaber slices through something metal. A clonk echoes out the large chamber, the only sound but for the humming of the one remaining lightsaber and Vader’s loud regular breathing.

Vader had pushed him out of the way. _Vader_ had pushed him out of the way! But in doing so he hadn’t been fast enough to meet the incoming blade. That was Vader’s right arm on the floor. It was Vader’s extinguished lightsaber that rolled to Luke’s feet.

Luke can’t think from the blood rushing in his ears.

“Why did you do that?” Morit asks Luke’s question, almost as shocked as Luke himself. Then he recovers and draws his yellow saber back for a lethal strike. He will be the one to take Vader’s place.

Vader only has himself to blame, first the leg and now the arm. The mere proximity to Luke, his _son_ , has been a fatal distraction. The dark side is like wisps of smoke instead of the usual cold dark fire and he cannot grasp it. He can’t even be angry. He doesn’t regret it one bit.

This time it is flesh being struck. A lightsaber through the chest, there is no return from that. Luke stands there somehow between Vader and Morit.

No! Vader’s mind screams, but no sound escapes his mangled vocal cords.

Morit makes a gurgling sound low in his throat, small speckles of blood dot his lips. Only then does Vader notice the red saber coming out of his back. He spasms and the yellow saber falls out of his weak fingers. Vader can hear Luke’s breaths now, coming much too fast, but they are there! 

Luke staggers back into Vader’s chest, and he quickly steadies him with his remaining left hand. His son is in his arms and his heart leaps for joy. He notices the white-knuckled two-handed grip Luke has on the too-large hilt of Vader’s saber. Luke is as pale as his knuckles. The red blade hums in glee over the kill. Vader slowly closes his hand over Luke’s.

Morit collapses and the blade cuts upwards and through the chest wall and goes through the meat of his left shoulder on the way out. Luke gags. He twists out of Vader’s hold, relinquishing the lightsaber. 

The sound of Luke emptying his stomach falls to the background, as Vader focuses on the remaining threat. Aiolin backs away fearfully, shaking her head, begging for mercy, but Vader is not listening. She holds out her arms to shoot fire at him, but she spent all her fire on Luke earlier. 

She doesn’t even manage a scream, before Vader separates her head from her body.

Behind him Luke throws up again.

“Was that really necessary?” 

Vader turns around, gaze inscrutable behind the mask. He watches silently as Luke wipes his mouth and spits one last time off the platform into lava below.

“She was hardly a threat, she was beaten,” Luke feels the need to defend. 

His stomach turns as he once again sees Morit’s lifeless eyes in his mind. He’s never killed anyone up close. He hasn’t seen the life leave their eyes or heard their death rattle. But Luke had been close enough for tiny specks of blood to hit him, when he coughed. Close enough for an embrace. There is something intimate and terrible about it. 

Vader seemingly ignores him, turns away. His gaze fastens on the balcony the Cylo guy had occupied, he limps as close as he can get, the balcony is still much too far away, at ten feet above their heads and five feet of open air with a drop into a lava river below. 

Vader is a sight now. The limp, the right arm cut off above the elbow, the cape missing a large part of the bottom right corner and the wound at his side, which is the least visible, but still adds to the overall impression of having been through a meat grinder. 

Luke doesn’t feel much better: he’s nauseous, his hair and shirt sticks to his skin, his right upper arm burns and every muscle in his body screams for rest. He’s gonna have bruises from the fall after the explosions. He’s utterly exhausted, he just wants to lie down.

“She would have become a threat again,” Vader eventually answers, when Luke has almost forgotten his argument. “Come boy, we must proceed.”

“What happened to Luke?” 

Vader glances at him, there is something almost bewildered about him.

“You called me Luke during the battle,” Luke explains, and he has not finished unpacking the sheer desperation in Vader’s voice at that moment. “Now you’re back to the name calling.”

“It is none of your concern, now don’t struggle.”

“Wha-“ The question has not even properly left his mouth before he is suddenly grabbed with the Force and sent flying. He screams. The world is spinning - right until it suddenly isn’t. As the world slowly aligns itself, he realizes he’s been caught again and is now hovering over the balcony Cylo had been on, or at least he assumes this is the one - He is a mite disoriented. 

Vader gives him another second to recover, then drops him. Luke lands hard, his knees don’t appreciate the treatment. 

Moments later Vader somehow jumps up to the balcony. There’s nothing light or elegant about it. He is more durasteel than flesh and the weight of him makes the balcony tremble. His left leg doesn’t hold, and he goes momentarily to his knee, but he pushes off with his one remaining hand and propels himself forward in that by now familiar limp. 

“Come boy, Cylo must be stopped.”

Luke staggers to his feet from sheer force of will. Here they go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha, can anyone guess where I considered ending this chapter? Just think of the most evil place possible.  
> Alas it fits the story better like this. 
> 
> I'm gonna try my very best to have the last chapter up on Tuesday, but I'm not quite satisfied with it yet since it's more of a draft and I want it to be just right and we just suddenly get the keys to our new house today earlier than expected, so real life caught a bit up with me.


	4. A Ghost In The Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We enter the final instalment of Bycatch as Luke and Vader has defeated their adversaries in the arena, but their greatest challenge is yet to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again a great many thanks to KaelinaLovesLomaris for beta-ing.  
> Thanks to Silverdaye too for arranging the whole Secret Santa, it's been great fun.

**Chapter 4 - A Ghost In The Machine**   


  
Vader sets a punishing pace. His limp seems a mere afterthought. Luke silently bemoans his sore muscles and his shorter legs. Every so often he finds himself lagging behind and has to run a couple of steps to catch up. 

This tunnel is straight, no twists or turns, no splitting paths. It is also just barely lit, from small lights in the wall. Spectators get better treatment it seems. 

Luke realizes that the path is taking them every so slightly upwards. 

“When we catch up to Cylo,” Vader breaks the silence, “you are under no circumstances to kill him, as that will cause his consciousness to transfer to a new body.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense, transfer to a new body? But also, Luke doesn’t have to be warned off killing someone; he will happily not kill anyone. He’s nothing like Vader.

“I don’t exactly make a habit of murdering people.”

Vader looks askance at him.

“Last we met, you blew up the Death Star.”

That’s different, Luke’s about to say and it was, it _is_ different, but then Luke realizes what that means. He pales, stops.

“You know.” 

All this time, Luke had thought he didn’t know. That nobody knew. He had felt safe in the knowledge that Vader knew he was a rebel, that he was the son of a Jedi he had killed, but that he didn’t know it was Luke who was the cause of his dishonor over the Death Star. Vader is known for being vengeful. All this flashes through Luke like a wave of static.

“I knew since I laid eyes on you. It is inconsequential,” Vader dismisses. “We must stop Cylo before he gets away.”

Vader’s strides eat the ground up, and he has to run to get even with him.

“Does he also know?” Luke says breathlessly, his mind in an uproar he can’t make sense of.

“No, he knows something much more important.”

“More important?” How can he know something more important? The bounty for the Death Star pilot is astronomical, it is on the top of the Empire’s most wanted list, even higher than the alliance leadership.

“That you are Luke Skywalker.”

Luke waits a beat, but no more is forthcoming. It is just that. His name.

“I don’t see how that is important.”

“Indeed, or you wouldn’t go shouting your name to your enemies,” Vader responds wryly. “You never considered your father might have had enemies?”

Luke glares. “I know of one.”

There’s a moment of inexplicable silence before Vader responds.

“Hold onto that anger, it will serve you well. But you should find a deeper well of malice.”

Luke stares at Vader absolutely nonplussed. Is this more of Vader giving him advice about the Force? He shakes his head and ignores the unsolicited advice.

He doesn’t understand why his name matters so much. Even less why it matters to his father’s murderer. He was so callous earlier, he’s killed so many people he doesn’t remember them. So why does Luke matter? Why had he saved him? And at the cost of his arm! And that moment he’d called Luke’s name just before pushing him out of the way… He sounded so desperate, genuinely fearful he wouldn’t make it in time to save Luke. 

It doesn’t matter right now, Luke decides. While Vader has been forthcoming when it comes to Cylo, he doubts Vader will deign to answer any differently than he did the first time Luke asked why he saved him. Vader has been pretty civil towards him ever since they fell into the tunnels, lulling him into a false sense of security. He cannot begin to guess at Vader’s motivations for doing things and he really shouldn’t.

Luke has to focus on the facts. Once they get out of these tunnels and Vader is busy pursuing Cylo, Luke won’t get a better chance of escape.

“You are a fool, boy,” Vader drawls, interrupting his thoughts. “Skywalkers usually are, but don’t be stupid. You know you cannot escape.”

Luke glares and thinks very clearly: _get out of my head_. Out loud he says: “I think I’ll take my chances.”

“Your little dance back there was impressive but you cannot repeat it at will. You are too easily distracted. You desperately need training.”

Luke scoffs in disbelief. “And I suppose you will handle that.”

“Yes.”

Luke stops in his tracks. That is what Vader wants? To make him his apprentice? The gall to think Luke would ever agree to that.

“I will never join you,” he promises vehemently.

“Is that so?” Vader muses. “I was a Jedi once, I know all their teachings… The dark side is stronger, but the light is not a bad place to start.”

Luke is forced to run to catch up once more.

“I would think you would welcome the chance to learn such basics as how to shield your mind,” Vader continues pointedly.

“You would teach me to be a Jedi?” The words feel strange in Luke’s mouth.

Anger rolls through the air like a current.

“I would teach you the truth of the Jedi.” 

There’s so much anger and bitterness packed into that sentence Luke cannot even begin to understand, and no further explanation is forthcoming. He doesn’t know why he expected Vader to be indifferent to the Jedi. But then is it really no wonder it’s personal with the Jedi? Vader had been one, like he said himself. He’d been Ben’s apprentice. What happened to turn someone to the dark side?

Luke desperately wants to ask why he’d killed his father, but a cold breeze comes from up ahead, bringing the fresh scent of pine trees. He takes a deep breath. The fresh air is amazing. He doesn’t even know when he stopped smelling rotten eggs, but he does not miss it. And that’s the exit right there! Night has fallen in the outside world and it’s only moonlight from the three moons throwing light into the tunnel. 

Another cold wind blows into the tunnel, and Luke shivers. Goosebumps rise on his skin. His shirt is still clammy from the fight, and with the wind blowing in he’s suddenly freezing. He’d not even noticed the gradual way the air lost its heat.

Teeth clattering, he pulls his jacket back on. He winces as it rubs against his burn. 

They exit the tunnel and the world opens up around them. They are in a clearing in a pine forest. The skies above are clear, and the multitude of stars shining down on them show just how far they’ve gotten from the light pollution of civilization. 

The roar of engines draw their gazes to the left, to the transport ship rapidly flying away. There’s no way they won’t be long gone by the time they find a ship.

“We’re too late,” Luke pants and leans back heavily on the rock wall. 

“It is not over yet,” Vader rumbles, then he reaches out with his remaining hand. It is like the air around them trembles. He snaps his hand shut into a fist and sparks fly and metal screams from where part of the hull of the transport caves in in response. 

The engines roar as the ship tries to escape Vader’s invisible grasp, but it’s held perfectly still in the air. Now Vader pulls, and it is like the very world around them shifts. Luke feels dizzy but he cannot take his eyes off the ship, struggling futilely like a beast caught in a rope being reeled in. The engines short circuit from the strain and catch fire. Seconds later Vader sets the ship down in the clearing.

At some point Luke’s jaw had dropped. Yeah, there goes all of Luke’s hope of just outrunning the crippled Dark Lord… 

The ramp opens up with a stutter and a groan. Out pours a mismatch of soldiers cobbled together with flesh and mechanics, more or less obvious. They seem mindless somehow. Vader limps forward with no hesitation. 

Maybe Luke does have a chance of escape. Slowly, silently he takes a step back instead of following Vader, then another. Maybe this will actually work!

Vader waves a hand and there’s a tug on his jacket. He stumbles forward until he’s dragged to be at Vader’s back. 

“Don’t take me for a fool either, young one.”

Luke’s jaw tightens. He’d promised Leia he’d return. He’d promised.

Vader draws his lightsaber just in time to reflect the first blaster shot back at the shooter. Vader steps ever onwards. The red lightsaber whirls through the air as if Vader’s preferred hand had always been the left and not the right he’d lost. The enemy frontline hits them and Vader tears through them, slicing and stabbing. Vader is not fast, but he is brutally efficient. He’s an unstoppable, remorseless force of nature.

Luke feels faint. He covers his mouth with a hand as lifeless glassy eyes stare up at him from half a person. There’s a shameful part of him relieved it is not him at the end of Vader’s lightsaber. He steps over a few severed limbs to stay at Vader’s back. His stomach turns dangerously. Luke’s going to have so many nightmares.

They enter the ship and Vader’s heavy steps echo loudly in the spacious cargo hold of the transport. There’s a few overturned crates, but otherwise the place is empty. Broken cables spark where they hang from the broken hull. Vader walks forward with purpose, and Luke follows in his shadow. He muses in a mix of humor and horror that this is probably the safest place in the galaxy to be.

They reach the locked door to the cockpit on the far side of the hold. Without even a second’s hesitation, Vader plunges his saber into the door. Molten metal drips onto the floor from where the red plasma blade carves a large oval. Luke has never seen a lightsaber used this way before. Once it is done, the metal slab falls inwards with a small push of the Force. 

The cockpit is revealed, and it is of no design Luke has ever seen; there’s something almost organic about the controls. The pilot’s chair spins around and there sits Cylo. Horrified, Luke realizes doesn’t have a skin condition, it is actual green scaly rodian skin and a rodian eye in the man’s face! What is he?

Vader steps into the room and somehow Cylo remains completely calm. What was it that Vader said? That should he die his consciousness would just transfer into another body? Was this why he could sit there quietly, showing no fear?

Luke steps inside and Cylo’s attention is drawn to him.

“Ah, the young Skywalker. I saw your display.” He waves at the screens behind him showing the arena, empty now except for Aiolin and Morit’s bodies. “Quite impressive. Your father must be very proud.”

The words feels grimy and sticky somehow, and Luke is struck by how the man doesn’t care at all about his people. 

“Enough!” Vader thunders, and the screens and the consoles crack and spark. He puts his lightsaber back on his belt and roughly tugs Cylo out of the chair. For the first time Cylo actually looks surprised and uncertain.

Vader chuckles darkly and pushes him out the hole in the door into the cargo hold. 

“Did you think I had forgotten?” Vader rumbles, following after the mad scientist. The last time he’d killed the man Cylo-IV, he’d merely come back again renamed Cylo-V, and then he’d arrogantly revealed to Vader the secret of his apparent immortality. “No, you will not be allowed to die. Now walk or I will cut off your legs and roll you to the shuttle.”

“The Emperor-” Cylo protests, but Vader cuts him off.

“The Emperor doesn’t know of this, you’ve made sure.”

Luke steps out into the hangar just in time to see Cylo open and close his mouth a few times, backing away from the approaching Vader. Something changes in his face and Luke has a sudden bad feeling.

“I did not want to use this now.” 

He finds something in a pocket and the next moment Vader freezes. He just halts in his tracks, utterly still.

“What did you do to him?” Luke asks horrified. 

Cylo smiles now. 

“You would not know it, but it was I who created Vader’s suit. Very few know the extent of Vader’s enhancements, and I am one of those people. It would have been remiss of me not to install a little safety mechanism. It is installed directly into the neural implants in his spine.

“So you see boy, Darth Vader is nothing more than another one of my creations, my gift to the new Emperor, in return for resources.”

Luke’s hand hovers over his lightsaber hilt. He doesn’t know what to do. 

“This is your best chance of escape, boy,” Cylo echoes Vader’s words from earlier.

“Escape?” Luke asks uncertainly, though his heart leaps in his chest.

“My quarrel is not with you, young Skywalker, it never was. However interesting a bycatch you are, this was never about you.” Cylo steps to the side of the room, over by the wall. It leaves a large open path to the ramp.

Luke has taken a step forward before he knows it, then another. He breathes deep, shakily. Any moment now he expects something to go wrong. Cold shivers down his back. He passes the frozen Vader and now he knows there’s only one thing holding him back: himself. Luke presses his lips together. Don’t be a fool.

“What are you gonna do to him?” he grits out.

“Vader is an outdated model,” Cylo responds without emotion, like it is completely logical. “I intend to replace him with a new one.”

He was gonna _scrap_ him.

Luke closes his eyes. His jaw works restlessly. Why does he care?! He looks out the ramp, there lies the way back to his friends. There’s also countless bodies, dead at Vader’s hand. Cylo and Vader are both bad. What does it matter? Why does he care!

He clenches his hands, takes another step, stops.

He can’t leave. He can’t get Vader’s desperate yell when he’d saved Luke’s life out of his head. He cannot forget Vader’s bitterness against the Jedi. Vader is not just a mindless automaton, he’s not “more machine than man,” and Luke can’t let him be scrapped like one.

He draws his lightsaber and stalks over to Cylo. He holds out the blue blade threateningly, trying not to let his arm shake too much.

“Let him go.” 

Luke is so tired, he just wants this whole day to be over. He should have never left the base. If there was one thing all the different stories he’d been told of his father agreed on, it was that his father was dead. To think, to hope had been his first mistake.

Cylo considers the blade for a moment. Then his lips turn down. 

“How unfortunate.” Cylo takes a step back and hits the controls on the wall. With a loud screech the ramp slowly closes, cutting off more and more of the moonlight. Luke’s heart pounds hard in his chest. He desperately clamps down the panic he feels at being trapped. They are left only in the flickering yellow lights of the overhead lamps, the sparking cables, and Luke’s lightsaber. 

Luke takes another step forward.

“Let him go.”

Cylo considers the blade emotionlessly.

There’s a moment of silence.

“You’re not gonna kill me. You don’t have it in you.” He sounds strangely disappointed and Luke realizes that is what he wanted. When Vader didn’t kill him but intended to take him prisoner he was forced to use his failsafe to immobilize him, and now that Luke didn’t chose to escape he’d hoped for Luke to kill him. 

Vader had said under no circumstances to kill him. Luke’s eyes stray to the hand holding the remote. 

He lashes out. Cylo backs away. The lightsaber misses the hand by mere inches. 

Cylo narrows his eyes as he keeps backing away. It is a shame with the boy. He would have enjoyed tracking him down at a later date. He finds the neuro controllers and attaches them to his temples. They activate and enhance his cerebral implants.

Luke has cornered Cylo, there’s nowhere for him to go. 

Suddenly there’s the sound of Vader’s breathing behind him, then the lightsaber turns on. Every single one of his hairs stands on end. Luke spins around just in time to block Vader’s strike. The force of the blow pushes him back and he stumbles and falls. Then without pause the blade swings down at him. Luke rolls to the side. The plasma blade carves into the floor right next to his head.

Wide eyed, Luke scrambles to his feet. Blood rushes in his ears. What’s going on? Frantically he looks from Vader limping stiffly towards him to Cylo’s face concentrated on Vader. Horrified, Luke realizes he’s controlling Vader’s body!

He almost doesn’t get his block up in time. There’s nothing refined about Vader’s strikes like this. He might as well be beating at Luke with a stick. But what he lacks now in skill he makes up for in sheer relentless power, and every blow Luke blocks sends pain soaring up his arms. He’s been forced almost back to the opposite wall by now.

Desperately Luke tries to reach for the Force. Vader’s words about his lack of training echo in his head, but he has to try! If only - Vader’s beats down on him - he could get - he knocks into a crate and nearly falls - a single second to breathe! The red blade strikes from the side, Luke’s hands give up and his lightsaber goes flying, cutting a swathe of molten metal in the wall before clattering to the floor extinguished.

Luke stumbles backwards, hands shaking from strain. Vader had been right. He couldn’t do it at will. He hits the wall, slides along it until he reaches the corner and he can go no further. His legs give out.

Vader’s body towers above him like a black behemoth, the flickering lights reflecting in the smooth surface of the helmet.

Cylo walks over, pleased as he can be. He stands next to Vader, and looks down on Luke.

“It is unfortunate that I have to terminate you now, boy. So much potential, if only I had known of your existence earlier, when you were more malleable and had less bad habits. But as it is, you’re not worth it.”

Luke grits his teeth. Cylo really likes to hear himself talk. He stands just out of reach. Luke can’t even kick him in the shin.

“There is something poetic about it though,” Cylo continues. “Vader’s legacy will live on as I further my research in the perfect combination of biology and technology, but you, Vader’s heir by blood, will be dead at his hand…”

“What?” _Heir by blood!_ Cylo surely can’t mean…

Cylo chuckles. “You came here looking for your father, and you found him, or rather the machine that remains.”

Luke has no time to process. Vader raises his arm high and then the red lightsaber is coming down at him. 

Oo o oO

Vader freezes in place. He glances at his HUD to be sure, but there are no error messages. He tries again. He cannot move. He tries to talk, but even his voice has been robbed from him.

“What did you do to him?”

Luke asks, horrified, from behind him. Vader can hear, he can see, all incoming signals to his brain are intact, but all outgoing signals have been cut. He cannot even blink or move his eyes. His heart beats steadily, lazily in his chest uncaring of his rising anger - and fear. He cannot, he will not, lose Luke.

Cylo prattles on and Vader scarcely listens. The dark side escapes his grasp, he is too distracted. Fear may lead to the dark side, but it cannot command it. Cylo offers to let Luke leave and suddenly Vader is listening.

_Yes, go boy!_

He sees Luke in the corner of his vision as he walks past Vader. With Luke out of the way, without the worry and his split attention he could - Luke stops. Vader can feel the boy’s turmoil.

“What are you gonna do to him?”

There’s a tightness in his chest he can’t explain. The boy should go. He has no reason to pause, no reason to stay, no reason to _care_ what happens to Vader. Even if he knew the truth the boy should have no attachment to his absent father. Yet he stays.

Why has no one ever taught the foolish child to save his own skin?

He hasn’t heard Cylo’s answer, what matters is that Luke leaves, but he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. No, he draws his lightsaber and tells one enemy to let another enemy go. He is the best and worst mix of Padme’s stubbornness and Skywalker foolishness. 

It is only now thinking of Padmé he realizes what Luke being alive means. Vader can’t have killed Padmé, or Luke would not be here. Palpatine, his old _friend_ , had lied to him. Like he had about so many other things. When he used to speak of how the war was tearing him apart, when he was the one who’d orchestrated the whole thing. The sheer scope of Palpatine’s betrayal unfurls around him, but until now what had Vader had but his hatred and his master and his pursuit of the dark side. He’d had nothing. And with death awaited only the Force and the countless lives he’d taken. But now there is Luke.

He takes a step towards Luke and for a moment he thinks he’s regained control of his body, but then he takes another and another, and he tells his body to hold still, but it doesn’t. His body stops just behind Luke, and he draws his lightsaber. No! 

Luke spins around just as the lightsaber comes towards him. The blue and red light is reflected in his wide fearful eyes as he blocks in the nick of time. The force of the blow knocks him to the ground, but Vader continues relentless. Vader blanks in horror. This is a waking nightmare. He cannot think. He must stop this, but he is powerless. Every strike against Luke is another moment of paralyzing fear drowning his all important rage.

The dark has abandoned him. The dark is powerful, but it serves only those strong enough to command it, it is a wild deceitful thing that will stab you in the back as soon as it senses weakness. 

Luke is cornered and he stands over him. 

Cylo prattles more and of course he tells Luke of their relation. Even that choice is taken from him. Luke stares up at him in shock. The proprioceptive signals tell his brain that his left arm is raising, bringing the lightsaber high before the final strike, because Cylo likes his drama. Any moment now the lightsaber will come down, ending that blazing fire that is Luke Skywalker.

Something twists inside Vader and suddenly it’s all clear. 

Dark side, Light side, it doesn’t matter. There is only the Force and he is the Force and the Force is him. The Force is his son shining like the most precious light in the galaxy. It is the world around them, the old towering pines, the pulsing core of the planet, the warmth in the river of lava they’d fought above. Vibrant in every blade of resilient grass. Slow and steady like a sigh in the rock of the mountain. It is there even in the abomination Cylo has made of himself.

He never understood how they in one breath told him to reach out with his feelings, but in the next told him not to feel. The Jedi had made it so complicated, a constant battle with himself. The Sith way was not much better, allowing only the darkest emotions. He’d become so reliant on the dark that he’d forgotten the most important lesson.

_The Force will be with you, always._

The Force cannot leave him. It is the very energy that holds the universe together. He merely has to reach. 

The red blade rushes down.

His selfish fear of loss is a flimsy shield for his son, but he bolsters it with determination. He flings all that he is into it; all his rage and sorrow, his hatred, his pain. And he claws into himself until he finds the shriveled heart of the man he once was: Anakin Skywalker, the desperate boy who felt too much, who feared too much. But there he also finds love and reckless hope. 

_This baby is a blessing._

And he is so proud of Luke, he’s only known him for a day, but he is so proud. He gives all that he is, all that he was, over to the Force, fueled by hope. Anger and spite are powerful motivators, but nothing is quite as dangerous as hope. Hope for a future, something worth fighting for.

The blade strikes the barrier around Luke and bounces back. 

Luke can scarcely breathe, he cannot believe he is alive. He reaches out, touches the shimmering air in front of him that had repelled the lightsaber and reels back from the static of swirling emotions dispersing into the air. His heart leaps in his chest. He felt Vader’s dark fire in the shield. Somehow Vader had stopped the lightsaber.

Vader is no longer bound by his physical trappings and it is so easy to move his body. It is like a doll, he merely has grasp the limbs and move them. 

Cylo looks at him in terror and steps back. He desperately tries to stop Vader’s movement. Warnings blink on his HUD. The servos in his limbs are burning themselves out straining against the Force. He brings the lightsaber down on Cylo, cutting off first one and then the other arm at the shoulder. Then he slices through the remote still clutched in the hand of the severed limb. 

Vader ignores Cylo’s wailing. He’s got regular control of his body back and Luke is all that matters. He moves stiffly and imprecisely as he turns around. He’s lost fine motor control. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s reaching out a hand. To touch, to reassure, he doesn’t know. He stops, his fingers curl as if burnt. Sense has returned to him. What does he think he’s doing? As if Luke will welcome his touch. 

They should get out of this place. He starts to turn, but he feels a slight tug at his shoulder, something is suddenly holding his arm back. He blinks, then looks back.

Luke has grabbed his hand. 

Vader doesn’t know what to make of this. He looks into Luke’s determined eyes, notes the nervous clench of his jaw. The boy’s throat bobs, but no words come out. Luke tightens his hold momentarily and this Vader can feel with his rudimentary sensory feedback.

The boy blows air out of his nose in a frustrated sigh.

“Tell me.” _Is it true,_ he might as well have said. And Vader’s heart, one of the few organs still his own and now allowed to respond to him again, pounds faster in his chest.

“I am your father.” The vocoder doesn’t translate the whirl of emotion in his broken voice. It says the words blandly, doesn’t capture the way his voice shakes by how momentous it is to say it out loud.

Luke lets go of Vader’s hand and leans against the wall. He still can’t quite believe he had the gall to take Vader’s hand, but the way he’d reached out for Luke but then drawn back had tugged at Luke’s heart. He takes a shuddering breath. There’s no denying it, it’s the truth. He had felt Vader’s emotions, and though he couldn’t begin to parse them all, he’d felt more than the anger and hatred Vader had exuded all day, he’d felt love and pride and it was because of Luke. 

His father loves him, is proud of him, and it’s all he ever wanted, but his father is also Darth Vader. 

Numbly, Luke’s gaze moves to the scientist on the floor behind Vader. Cylo has stopped outright screaming and is now only sobbing in pain. What remains of his shoulders are perfectly even burnt black crusts.

Luke doesn’t know what to feel. He thinks maybe he should be crying but his eyes are dry. He’s simply spent. He looks up at Vader with tired eyes. 

“Will you let me go?”

Anakin’s failing had always been that he couldn’t let go. Vader is no different in that aspect, and he doesn’t pretend to be a good person.

“No.” 

Luke’s shoulders slump forward. He’d had to ask, he’d had to confirm at least. 

Vader reaches out his hand for him palm up, a silent offer to help him to his feet. Luke can tell he doesn’t really expect Luke to actually accept the help. He expects rejection and maybe that’s what sparks Luke’s determination. Gritting his teeth, he grabs Vader’s, _his father’s_ , hand. 

This is not what he’d expected. This is not what he’d wanted. But he _had_ found his father, and he knew his father loved him, the rest he would figure out along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end, I hope you all enjoyed the fic, especially HeartOfStars who this was for after all <3  
> It took somewhat more of an angsty turn than what I'd initially planned, but what can you do. The character's do what they want XD


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